Friday, June 16, 2006

Thank Heaven for 7-Eleven

"A spring Sunday morning and I am at the politically incorrect 7-Eleven buying my cholesterol loaded half-and-half for my peasant slave labor grown coffee. In the parking lot, car speakers blare out Bob Marley from a grungy 1987 Olds Cutlass (the last year GM made 'em), while the owner, a Haitian guy, sits on the curb eating his Smokey Big Bite hot dog, sunshine pouring over the whole world sweet as that quart of chocolate milk he is going to wash it all down with. Bob Marley is singing "One Love" and that Smokey smells so damned good I order one for myself and settle in next to that Haitian dude. And I think, "Is this a great fucking country or what? Yessiree, the world's best hope.And it is. Or was. Or something." "Americans have always been an obedient people, proud to be answerable and obedient to the nation's law and god, with one reinforcing the other somehow in the national mind. Obedient people do not look up from their assigned cubicles; do not ask if their work is meaningful or contributory to mankind. Never question the way things are. Not in church, nor in daily life. And if the air reeks of a republic rotting from the inside out, you just hold your nose."